I’m a New York Times best-selling author, blogger, international speaker and the founder of We First. We First is the leading social branding firm that provides consulting and training to help companies tell the story of the good they do in ways that build reputation, profits and social impact. A former Nike creative at Wieden & Kennedy and Worldwide Creative Director on Motorola for Ogilvy, I'm now a member of the Sustainable Brands Advisory Board, the Advisory Board of the Center for Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a contributor to Fast Company, Huffington Post, Mashable, and GOOD magazine. My first book entitled 'We First: How brands and consumers use social media to build a better world,' is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller, and was named one by Amazon as one of the Top Ten Business Books for 2011, and Best Marketing Book of 2011 by strategy+business magazine. I can be found on twitter @simonmainwaring and Facebook and you can follow me at Forbes by clicking the 'Follow Me' button under my picture.

What Kony 2012 Can Teach Us About Ourselves

Invisible Children recently launched what is now the viral video sensation called KONY 2012. The purpose of the video is to make Joseph Kony, the Ugandan leader of the L.R.A. (Lord’s Resistance Army) that has forced children to kill their parents and serve as soldiers, famous for his atrocities. Its goal being to raise global awareness about his crimes to maintain motivation among the U.S. and international community to see him brought to justice.

In light of such controversy, critics posed the question: Is Kony 2012 a sign of how powerful social media can be as a news distribution mechanism, a sign of how dangerous it can be, or both?

One thing is certain. The Invisible Children video stands as another powerful example of the ability of social media to connect citizens around shared values. The Arab Spring Revolutionsenlisted social media to scale messaging around desperate political and economic inequalities, while #occupywallstreet continues to leverage social media to draw attention to economic inequalities around the globe. Underpinning all three movements is a powerful presumption enjoying a new lease on life, that that the future is ours to create.

Invisible children has gone to great lengths to address these concerns on their website, and as the KONY 2012 news cycle plays out, it’s important not to lose sight of the fundamental shift playing out before our eyes. If corrupt and mixed motives among some political, military and business leaders led to a polarization of political, economic and social power around the world, social media is creating a platform on which citizens and customers are working together to confront that gap. So, in contrast to the devastating domino effects of the global economic meltdown in 2008, in these cases social media is being used to demonstrate that our connectedness and interdependence within a global community can also be a force for good.

Success on the scale of Kony 2102 will always bring with it unforgiving scrutiny. Commentators are right to question both the cost of fetishizing social media and also our inability to effectively unpack any complex issue in a single pass. No doubt, as Seth Godin observes, many organizations will naively copy the same strategy hoping for equally dramatic and timely results. But as I watch activists, journalists, historians, politicians, technologists, media experts and regular people all around the world challenge the merits of the video and motives of its makers, one question stands out above all. When you find an injustice that moves you as deeply, will you act?

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“The video does more harm than good by focusing the issue on one man.”

Also, Uganda made the #1 spot on Lonely Planet’s Top Places to Visit for 2012 only a couple of months ago. #1 in the entire world. This campaign will surely have a detrimental effect on the potential for any new tourism revenue and foreign investment. Two massive stimuli to an up-and-coming economy. This will hurt job creation, existing businesses, school funding, polital and social stability, and general community sustenance.

Thanks Nicole. Yes, the issue is complicated when there are competing interests like the LRA (that has now left Uganda) and tourism. there is no simple solution and Egypt has suffered terribly due to the lack of tourism. Let’s hope there’s the opportunity to point out the wonderful aspects of Ugandan culture as well. Thanks, Simon

Simon, this is a thoughtful reading of a complex situation. I see where you are going at the end, but your last sentence is a little unclear: “When you find an injustice that compels you to act, “What’s yours?”’ Do you mean, among all the world’s atrocities which is the one that moves you (the reader) to action? Or when you find that injustice, what will you do about it? Thanks for curating the most reputable of the criticisms and still coming to a positive conclusion.

In an interview these guys said “we’re not a traditional charity” and that roughly 66% +/- of their revenue goes towards “spreading the message.” That sounds more like a political organization than a charity. So I asked myself, “What are their political views?” Well, they have a shirt with a donkey and an elephant holding an olive branch (a political reference) and they pretty well divided the democrats and republicans (politicians) they wanted to target evenly so it seems pretty centered. But then there is one thing that caught my attention; they made it seem like it is a commonly accepted view that essentially “the rich” control the government with their pyramid model, which they invert to symbolize the people taking control. This inverted pyramid is the center piece of one of their signs as well. Maybe it’s just me but portraying the wealthy like this seems to be the views shared by the occupy wall street movement and those on the far left and not the collective people. Because to believe that would in essence be to say that our democracy is a total sham. It also appeared that the guy in the movie responsible for the design of their signs and shirts is the same guy that designed the Obama “Hope” sign. I could be mistaken. Also, is it a coincidence that this video came out in 2012 (an election year) and is only running through the end of the year? Is Joseph Kony just a front for an underlying cause? The bottom line is no matter what the real intent of the video is, 95% of those that posted it did so based solely on the information given in the video and didn’t do any of their own research. That is both naive and foolish. They could’ve been supporting Kony himself for all they knew.

Thanks and I agree it’s complicated. None of us know the full extent of relationships between government and business all around the world that could imply our own complicity. Personally, I believe the creators of this video were motivated by san authentic commitment to make a difference and that they were probably smart to launch this in an election year because they can draft off the whole idea of making someone famous or “electable.” That said, this is my opinion only, based on the reading I have done, and everyone has vested interest. Plus clearly the creators are sharing their political views which is also their right. Teasing all these vested interests and personal opinions out to get an authentic, impartial view is almost impossible. But I agree thorough research and vested interests must always be considered. Thanks.